Wood ripping device



2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed April 30, 1956 6. Z/MMERMA/V/V Nov. l5, 1960 ,f

G. ZIMMERMANN 2,960,127 woon RIPPING DEVICE Filed April 50, 1956 F/G.8 of

2 Sheets-Sheet 2 "//v VEA/role G Z/MMERMA/VN vide a wood ripping vextremely low cost.

WQGD PING DEVICE Gottfried Zimmermann, Friedhofstrasse 81a, Dorlar, near Giessen, Germany Filed Apr. '30, 1956, Ser. No. 581,796 Claims priority, application Germany June 25, 1952 8 Claims. (Cl. 14A-186) The present invention relates to a wood ripping device, and more particularly it relates to a wood ripping device adapted to be used in the manufacture of Wood wool or excelsior. Y

The present application is a continuation-in-part of my copending application Serial No. 362,921, entitled Wood Wool Scoring Tool, tiled on June 19, 1953, and now abandoned.

The known devices for the production of wood wool or excelsior of predetermined width include knife assemblies wnich serve for scoring timber fed into a wood wool making machine. Subsequently the cutter of a Wood planer removes the scored wood layer from the remainder of the timber. The width of the wood Wool fibers is thereby controlled by the lateral distance of the cutting edges of the adjacent scoring knives in the knife assembly. The scoring knives have a length of approximately 200 mm. and are assembled adjacent to each other in a scoring knife box in which they are kept in position by means of pressure screws.

Irregularities in the timber fed into the wood wool making machine, such as knobs or also foreign matters, frequently cause premature wearing out of the cutting portions of individual scoring knives or of several scoring knives, thereby rendering the entire knife assembly useless. In such case it is necessary to remove individual knives from the assembly, to regrind the cutting edges thereof and thereafter to reassemble all of the knives again so as to properly align all of the cutting edges thereof. This assembling or reassembling of the knives is a rather time-consuming operation due to the requirement of achieving practically perfect alignment of the cutting edges.

Furthermore, the regrinding of the long flat scoring knives unavoidably causes an undesirable heating of the cutting edges. Thereby the quality of the knife material and also the useful life span of the cutting edge are considerably impaired.

It is a further disadvantage of the above described device that the cutting edges of the scoring knives if viewed under the microscope are not smooth but actually have a rough surface. the cutting edge cause considerable friction duringthe scoring of the timber and consequently a considerable portion of the wood is wasted by being transformed into wood meal rather than wood wool.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to overcome the above described disadvantages of existing Awood wool making devices.

It is a further object of the 'vide a wood ripping quickly installed in a It is another object present invention to prodevice which can be easily and wood wool making machine.

device which can be produced at It 1s yet another object of the present invention to These rough surface portions of of the present invention to proy States Patent() provide a light weight low cost,wood ripping device of the needle-like elements 2,960,127 Patented Nov.V 15, 196,0

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2 s which may be entirely discarded upon wearing out of anjl of the wood ripping portions thereof.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a wood ripping device which will permit the production of wood wool without forming any appreciable amount of wood meal.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a further reading of the description and the appended claims.

With these and other objects ink view, the present invention mainly comprises in a ripping device, in combination, a band support, and a plurality of pointed elements carried by and extending transversely of the band support, the pointed elements all having pointed ends extending laterally beyond a side edge of the band support and, when the latter is located in a plane, the pointed ends terminating in a straight line located in the plane.

According to the present invention the ripping device comprises pointed elements in the shape of needles which are carried by a band support preferably consisting of two superposed bands or foils made of suitable material such as paper, cardboard, textile fabrics, synthetic resins or metal and having the needles glued to or pressed into the band support, preferably between two superposed bands.

According to another preferred embodiment of the present invention the needle carrying band consists of a synthetic resin in which the needles are embedded. According to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the band support consists of a narrow thin sheet metal magazine, i.e. of two narrow sheet metal strips with chambers formed between the two superposed strips, each chamber adapted to receive one of the needle-like pointed elements.

It is Within the scope of Vthe present invention to have the needles which are carried by the band support arranged in such a manner that the needles form a row with adjacent needles abutting on each other or to have spacing means arranged between adjacent needles. The stems of 4the needle-like pointed elements may be of any desired cross section, such as circular thereby forming a cylindrically shaped stem, or rectangular, preferably s0 as to have an elongated rectangularcross section.

The pointed elements may be arranged in theband support in such a manner that the pointed ends of the individual needle-shaped elements will all extend laterally beyond one of the side edges of the band support, or, the needles may also be so arranged that the pointed ends of adjacent needles extend laterally beyond opposite side edges respectively of the band support.

Accordingly, according to a preferred embodiment of lthe present invention, the ripping device comprises in combination a band support having two opposite side edges, a plurality of first pointed elements carried by and extending transversely of the band support, the first pointed elements all having pointed ends extending laterally beyond one of the side edges of the band support, and a plurality of second pointed elements carried by and extending transversely of the band support, the second pointed elements all having pointed ends extending laterally beyond the other of the side edges of the band support and, when the latter is located in a plane, the pointed ends of each of the pluralities of pointed elements, respectively, terminating in a straight line located in the plane, the first and second pointed elements each being identically shaped and arranged in alternating sequence on the band support.

The present invention also includes in a wood wool making machine a ripping device as described herein and vmeans for holding the ripping device in the wood wool making machine in such a position that the pointed ends will come in contact with and 3 rip timber which is fed into the wood wool making machine. The holding means for holding the wood ripping device in the wood wool making machine may be a separate unit, or'may also be integral with the remainderV of the Wood wool making machine.

Preferably, all of the needle-like pointed elements in the ripping device are of identical shape. While fthe 'presvent. invention 'is not `limited :to ilexible` band supports, excellent results are achieved by making the band support of a somewhat exible material.

Thus, according to the present invention, in place of the previously used scoring knives of about 200 mm. length which have to be reground from time to time, short needle-like pointed elements are employed which are combined to a needle band by .being carriedqbyva band support. The distance of the individual pointed ends of the needle-like elements is controlled bythe thickness of the stem portion thereof and can be increased by arranging spacing means between adjacent needle-like elements. The spacing means preferably are shaped like the stems of the needle-like elements, however without the pointed end portions thereof and of shorter length.

Due to the smallness and light weight of the individual needles, and consequently of the entire ripping device of `the present invention, the same can be easily manipulated and inserted into the wood wool making machine or removed therefrom without loss of time. The heavy boxes required for receiving the assemblies of long scoring knives which previously had to be employed are not required in connection with the ripping device of the present invention.

Not only are the individual needle-like pointed elements of the present invention of small size and Weight, but it is also possible to produce the same at extremely low cost. Therefore, when one or more of the individual pointed ends show signs of wear and are no longer capable of adequately ripping the wood, the entire needle band can be quickly removed from the wood wool making machine and replaced by new needle band. Due to its low cost it is usually not worthwhile to recover individual needles from a partly worn needle band and the used up needle band is therefore frequently discarded.

The length of the band support and the number of pointed elements carried by the same will vary With the Working width of the wood wool making machine and generally amounts to up to 400 mm. The present invention, however, is not limited to any specific lengths of the ripping device.

Only the pointed ends of the needle-like pointed elements come in contact with the wood which is to be transformed into wood wool, and consequently only the pointed ends perform the essential task of ripping the wood. The stem portion of the pointed elements is carried by the band support and serves only for adhering the needlelike element to the band support. Only a fraction of a millimeter of the pointed end of the needle-like element is eventually worn out by the wood with which it comes in contact. Therefore, in order to save material, it is preferred according to the present invention to use the shortest possible needle-like elements, the stem however must be of sucient length to permit rigid positioning of the needle-like elements in or on the band support. Thus according toV a preferred embodiment of the present invention needle-like elements havingran overall length of about l5 mm. are used. It is an additional advantage of the ripping device of kthe present invention that one short needle usually weighing considerably less than l gram will perform the same function as one of the conventional scoring knives weighing approximately 30 grams.

The needle-like elements which form part of the ripping device according to the present invention can not only be very economically mass produced and require only very little material, but they can also be immediately used without any further grinding operation. Furthermore, the needles can be produced inthe most suitable hardness and quality which will not be impaired by any subsequent grinding of the pointed ends thereof, since such grinding operation which has to be performed on scoring knives, is not required in connection with the needle-like elements of the present invention. Consequently, lthe useful life span of the pointed ends of the device of the present invention by far exceeds the useful life span of scoring knives prior to their being reground.

The novel features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in particular in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, both as to its construction and its method of operation, together with additional objects and advantages thereof, will be best understood from the following description of specic embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. l is a schematic, fragmentary, elevated view, partly in section, of an embodiment of the ripping device of the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a schematic, fragmentary, elevated view, partly in section, of another embodiment of the ripping device of the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a schematic, fragmentary, elevated view, partly in section, of still another embodiment of the ripping device of the present invention;

Fig. 4 is a schematic, fragmentary, elevated view, partly in section, of yet another embodiment of the ripping device of the present. invention;

Fig. 5 is an enlarged elevated view partly in section, of another embodiment of the ripping device of the present invention;

Fig. 6 is an enlarged elevated view, partly in section of still another embodiment of the ripping device of the present invention;

Fig. 7 is an enlarged elevated view, partly in section, of yet another embodiment of the ripping device of the present invention;

Fig. 8 is an enlarged plane view, partly in section, of an embodiment of the ripping device of the present invention;

Fig. 9 is an enlarged plane view, partly in section, of another embodiment of the ripping device of the present invention;

Fig. 10 is a-schematic perspective view of the ripping device in combination with a holding means therefor in accordance with the present invention; and

Fig. l1 is a schematic perspective view of the ripping device located in a holding means therefor which forms an intergral portion of the entire ripping and cutting arrangement of a wood Wool making machine according to the present invention.

V Referring now to the drawings and particularly to Figs. 1 and 2, needle-like elements 3 are shown carried by two bands 1 and 2 of equal width, which bands must be flexible and allow partial embedding of the needle shank portions therein, thus the bands may either be made of paper, cardboard, textile fabrics, synthetic resins or metal. When bands made of .organic material are used, an adhesive material is applied to lthe sides of the bands facing each other. This adhesive is used to adhere the individual needle-like elements to the band support formedV by .thetwo bands and also to adhere the two free ends of the two bands of the support to each other. When metal bands are used as band support, the needlelike elements may be pressed between the two metal bands with suitable tools or by hand. The width of bands 1 and 2 is less than the length of the needle-like elements, so that the pointed ends of the needle-like pointed elements 3 will yextend transversely of the band support. In the illustrated embodiment, the blunt end of the needlelike elements also extend slightly transversely of the band support formed by bands 1 and 2. Thus .for instance the entire length of the needle-like ele- ,ments may be l5 mm. and the width of the bands forming the band supportmay correspondingly be about 10 ping device, comprising in combinatioma Yiiexible band support having an adhesive face, and having two opposite side edges; and `a plurality of pointed needle elements Yadhesively lattached to and permanently carried by said band support extending transversely thereof, said pointed needle elements all having pointed ends extending laterally beyond one of said side edges of said tlexible band support and, when the latter is located inv a plane, said pointed ends terminating in a straight line parallel to said plane.

4. For use in an excelsior machine, a self-contained ripping device, comprising in combination, a ilexible band support having an adhesive face; and a plurality of abutting pointed needle elements adhesively attached to and permanently carried by said band support extending transversely thereof, said pointed needle elements all having pointed ends extending laterally beyond a side edge of said ilexible band support and, when the latter is located in a plane, said pointed ends terminating in a straight line parallel to said plane. f

5. For use in an excelsior machine, a self-contained ripping device, comprising in combination, a band support comprising two flexible bands superposed upon each other each band having an adhesive face and the adhesive faces of said two bands, respectively, facing each other; and a pluralty of pointed needle elements adhesively attached to and permanently carried between said two bands and extending transversely of said exible band support, said pointed needle elements all having pointed ends extending laterally beyond a side edge of said band support and, when the latter is located in a plane, said pointed ends terminating in a straight line parallel to said plane.

6. For use in an excelsior machine, a self-contained ripping device, comprising in combination, a flexible band support comprising two ilexible bands superposed upon each other each band having an adhesive face and the adhesive faces of said two bands, respectively, facing each other and made of a material belonging to the group consisting of paper, cardboard, textile fabrics and synthetic resins; and a plurality of pointed needle elements made of steel carried between said two exible bands 'and extending transversely of said band support, said pointed needle elements all having pointed ends extending laterally beyond a side edge of said band support and, when the latter is located in a plane, said pointed ends terminating in a straight line parallel to said plane.

7. For use -in an excelsior machine, a self-contained ripping device, comprising in combinatioma flexible band support having an adhesive face; anda plurality of pointed needle elements located adjacent to each other adhesively attached to and permanently carried by said band support extending transversely thereof, said pointed needle elements all having pointed ends extending laterally beyond a side edge of said flexible band support and, when the latter is located in a plane, said pointed ends terminating in a str-aight line parallel to said plane.

8. For use in an excelsior machine, a self-contained ripping device, comprising in combination, a ilexible band support having an adhesive face; and a plurality of pointed needle elements each including a stem of substantially rectangular elongated cross-section adhesively attached to and permanently carried by said band support extending transversely thereof, said pointed needle elements all having lancet-shaped pointed ends extending laterally beyond a side edge of said flexible band support and, when the latter is located in a plane, said pointed ends terminating in a straight line parallel to said plane.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 43,358 Welsch June 28, 1864 634,895 Manning Oct. 17, 1899 1,020,100 Keogh Mar. 12, 1912 1,854,312 Perrenot Apr. 19, 1932 1,951,452 Stevens Mar. 20, 1934 2,518,838 Tempe Aug. 15, 1950 2,519,835 Hayford Aug. 22, 1950 2,581,786 Dietmann Jan. 8, 1952 

